Under a threat from the Trump administration, Columbia University has agreed to implement a set of political changes on Friday, including reforming its rules for protests and conducting an immediate review of the Middle East Studies Department.
The changes, which were detailed in a message sent by the interim president of New York City University, Katrina Armstrong, came one week after the Trump administration command at the Ivy League School for the age of these reforms and other reforms or the loss of all federal funding, a widespread alarm in academics as an attack on academic freedom.
In her message, Armstrong said that the university will immediately help a great deputy to conduct a comprehensive review of the regional studies program portfolio, “starting from the Middle East.”
Colombia will also renew its long disciplinary process and the protest process within academic buildings. Students will not be allowed to wear face masks on campus “for the purposes of hiding a person’s identity.” The people who wear it will be excluded for health reasons.
In an attempt to expand “intellectual diversity” within the university, Colombia will also help new faculty members at its institute for Israel and Jewish studies. It will also adopt a new definition of anti -Semitism and expanding programming at the Tel Aviv Center, a research center based in Israel.
The changes in politics were largely in line with the demands made by the Trump administration to the university, which withdrew 400 million US dollars in research grants and other federal funding, and threatened to reduce more, due to the university’s dealings with protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Colombia University PhD student Rangani Srenivasan invites accusations that she is a ridiculous “terrorist sympathy”, who told David CBC that she is afraid of her safety after the United States for Immigration and Customs, her officials appeared at her door.
The White House described anti -Semitic protests, a sign of those who participated in the demonstrations led by students.
A message seeking a comment with a spokesman for the Ministry of Education has been left.
As a “prior condition” to restore funding, Federal officials from the university demanded the status of the Department of Studies in the Middle East, South Asia and African under “academic guard for a period of not less than five years.”
They also asked the university to ban masks on the campus, adopt a new definition of anti -Semitism, cancel its current process to discipline students and provide a plan to “reform university admission, international employment practices and higher admission.”
Historians described this as an unprecedented intervention in the rights of the university, which was long treated by the US Supreme Court as an extension of the first amendment.
On Friday, the defenders of freedom of expression condemned Colombia’s decision immediately.
“A sad day for Colombia and our democracy,” said Jamel Jafar, director of the first amendment Institute in Colombia, on a social networking site.
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